December 2017CIOAPPLICATIONS.COM8NOW THAT THERE'S AGREEMENT TO INVEST IN INNOVATION, LET'S MAKE IT MEANINGFULMICHELLE WOODLEY & NANCY YATES, CHIEF NURSING INFORMATICS OFFICERS, PROVIDENCE ST. JOSEPH HEALTHealth care digital innova-tion has hit a milestone. No longer are executives questioning "if" they should invest. In fact, in a recent study, more than 75 percent of healthcare executives said digital innova-tion is key to their long-term strategy. The question now is, "How?" In a period of policy and financial uncertainty, how do we ensure we have the capacity to make necessary invest-ments? And, perhaps most importantly, how do we ensure investments are clearly meaningful assets to our organization and will truly make a difference in the lives of those we touch?Our responsibility to invest well All of us in health care bear a certain responsibility. Health care IT dollars must be spent where it counts: Solving real problems in the health care sector. That means we must avoid the projects that simply sparkle yet yield little in true return. We must clearly identify those in-vestments that assure ROI in quality and financial terms, staying true to evidence based medical science and the healing practice of care. While tempting to implement new patient consumerism technology, the fact remains that only around seven percent of care is actually "shopable"­ as most care is episodic or urgent. However, pre-ventive care technologies and efficiency technologies are being demanded by con-sumers at an ever increasing rate. We all need to dig deep and meet this challenge.At our organization, we've made digi-tal innovation a top-tier system priority. Our work in this area focuses on key strategies such as wellness and preven-tive care, improved clinical outcomes, and an enhanced patient and clinician experience. Every initiative must meet milestones and metrics, and contribute to extending our health system's healing mission.Sound investments lead the wayLet us give you some examples of what sound and successful digital innovation investments look like for our system. Take telehealth, which can be the eyes HMichelle Woodley IN MYVIEW
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